


Shattering

by DestielsDestiny



Series: (Shatter)Points in Time [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Civil War Team Iron Man, Emotions, Gen, Moments will be fleshed out later on, Mutant Rights, Mutant Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Series of Moments, Slice of Life, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, first in a series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 18:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: As dangerous mutations go, this one hardly even makes the list. Tony would disagree.





	Shattering

There’s rough stone beneath his feet. Above his head. There is sand and dust and noise. 

He is in a cave, and his chest has never felt heavier, and he will never draw in a true, deep, free breath again. 

There is a cave, and there is noise and men with really big guns. 

It is loud and scary, and the numbers have never been brighter, never burned his retinas hotter. 

He is in a cave, and the numbers are as loud as the shouting beyond the door. 

He is in a cave, and he will never draw in a true, free breath again, and there is shouting beyond the door, and the numbers are all ticking down to zero faster than he can blink. 

_There’s not enough time._

He is trapped, helpless, surrounded by iron. The numbers vanish in a puff of smoke. Too late. 

_Yinsen!!!_

00

“Tony Stark is a Closet Mutant!” The headlines will shout that from every twitter feed and TV screen, across the entire world, as if the world isn’t still reeling from the Alien Apocalypse, the Purple Thing Edition. 

The coverage will be far more fixated on pictures of Tony kissing his boyfriend then his actual mutation, for all that it’s 2020 and the world is a universe past giving a fuck. 

But some Times’ Reporter will end a press conference with a timid, “What’s your mutation Dr. Stark?” And the kid who asked is green and scaly and has a berth of two chairs on either side of her in a room packed to the rafters and Tony is his third open heart surgery without anesthetic past putting up with crap that is just stupid as fuck like that. 

And yes, when he says “I see probabilities,” no one knows what it means, nor cares to find out in the slightest. Nobody cares that it doesn’t sound remotely dangerous. 

Tabloids will still call him an unfit Avenger.

People will still spit on him in the street. Parents will still pull their children away from him in crowds. 

The Tower will still have Mutie Freak ?spray painted across its eightieth story by a drone. 

Tony almost has to admire the ingenuity put into that last one. Almost. 

But he also gives that green kid a job, and one day she’ll pass the bar and go off to change the world. Just like the numbers told him she could. 

And maybe it isn’t much, in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it’s barely anything at all. 

And maybe its something after all. Who can really say, these days. 

00 

They are in the lab, and there are blueberries and Science and Bruce and Tony thinks he might be the happiest he’s been in a long time. 

“It’s more than probabilities. More than just the numbers. It’s possibilities, things that might happen, things that could happen, things that will happen.” Tony gestures wildly with a wrench, stone cold sober and high as a kite. “It’s time itself, I think. Brucie Bear, I think I can see time.” 

And Bruce will just smile faintly and pass the blueberries, and the numbers around his head will flash more brilliantly than ever. 

00 

JARVIS has a brief flirtation with really bad sci-fi novels in his AI teenagerhood. Tony humours him through six star trek novelizations before insisting they switch to something at least slightly cooler. 

Because of course, of course he reads them out loud, the little shit. 

Two sagas later, and Tony has a newly christened Mutant name, and a new appreciation for the rigours of parenthood. 

But twenty odds years on, Tony will shake the X-Men’s hands, and very carefully not think about the moment the numbers appeared in the air, right where J’s matrix was. 

The day they both realized they had succeeded in creating true sentience in artificial intelligence. The day Tony truly grasped what the fear of loss felt like. 

And he’ll blink back moisture, grasp Cyclops’ hand firmly, and say, “Hi, I’m Shatterpoint” with a face that is as devoid of emotion as he can manage. 

00 

He’s in a frozen wasteland, dead bodies and greyed out numbers floating around him, and the man who killed his parents will look him in the eye, and the numbers have never been so black, the world never been so clouded. 

And he’ll look at the possibilities, the probabilities, and he’ll remember his mother’s face, lined and weary, yellow numbers in the single digits, remember being seventeen and too tired to even muster the energy to hug her goodbye. 

_That’s the way I wish it happened._

The possibilities are endless, how it could have ended. The numbers are screaming, the moment he raises his hand, opens metal clad fingers. 

Thirty years later, and he’s never cared more. Or less. 

It’s cold, and it’s painful, and his lungs are heavier than they’ve been in years. 

And above Steve’s head, not a single number dances. 

And for all the super soldier will outlive him by decades, they never come back again. 

00 

He is in a cave. The metal is cold on his arms. His lungs will never draw in a truly free breath again. There is shouting in more languages than he can count, and there is no time left. 

The old laptop is too slow, too clunky. The bolts in the armour are too tight, too rusty. 

The numbers are everywhere, blinkering his vision, searing through his skull until he wants to bash it against the rock and never stop. 

_There isn’t enough time._

Any moment now, the door will blow out. Any moment now… 

The numbers flatline. The shouting stops. _Boo-_

Tony moves. 

00 

“Have you ever tried to change something?” Peter has never looked younger, idly tossing webs at DUM-E like a cat owner with a laser pointer. 

Tony flips a hologram over with his good hand, shrugs one armed, and grins. 

“Maybe I already have. Who would know?” 

Certainly not him.

00 

Thanos is dead. A few of them aren’t. Tony stumbles into the Tower, scattering armour and bloody every which direction. 

He lurches into his lab, Friday’s voice almost making him sob. 

Strong hands catch his shoulders, a be-speckled gaze sharp with concern, but gentle with understanding. 

“What have you done to yourself this time Stark?” 

And blood is bubbling out of his lungs, frosting the edges of his lips and hitting the floor of the lab. Everything is loud and everything hurts. The numbers are spiraling every which way. 

A hand clasps the side of his neck, “It will be alright Anthony. We will catch you, as we always do.” 

And Tony shuts his eyes on the numbers, and for once, they do not haunt his dreams. 


End file.
